


The Prodigal Children

by AndreaLyn



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 04:58:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5614756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After so long spent waiting and murmuring the same refrain (they're coming back, they wouldn't just leave), Rey meets a droid uttering the exact same things. She soon starts to realize that maybe waiting isn't her only option.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Prodigal Children

The droid isn’t exactly very quiet, despite Rey’s insistence that it stay hushed. 

After so much time spent alone, it jolts her to hear the steady binary beeps cutting through the deafening silence of her home. The whistles and beeps tell Rey about this droid’s master and soon, her irritation at her space being invaded turns to a steady, quiet appreciation at being able to share her space, not to mention be able to talk and have something actually reply.

“You must really like your master,” Rey says, when the day has parted to night and she’s curled up with the heavy blankets she’s scavenged from multiple wreckages, curled up to try and ward off the chill. In the night, the moons glint off her wall and illuminate every scratched mark like a ghostly apparition looming over her.

The unit comments that its’ never had a better master and that he’s brave and talented and would never leave the droid alone when there’s work to be done.

It’s just a droid, but Rey swears that she can hear _hope_ in what it says next:

_He’s coming back for me._

Rey curls her blankets that much tighter around herself, burying her face in them so the droid can’t see the grief on her face. She’s heard those words before because she’s usually the one saying them. Fourteen years, now (if she takes the time to tally up all the little ticks, which she does on the days she gets a whole portion and needs something to occupy her mind while she eats), and she’s been saying the same thing.

They’re coming back for me. They’re not just going to leave me here.

They’re coming back.

So how on earth can she face this poor droid who’s so convinced of the same thing and not hope as much as she’s hoped for herself? She tugs the blankets down so that she can see the droid wheeling around her home, inspecting it and whistling.

“Shouldn’t you power down for the night?”

_He might come back. I need to be ready. I need to be here._

“At least come reduce your power outputs by me,” Rey suggests, “and tell me more about your master. That way, if I see him, I can warn you and get you ready.”

The droid unit hesitates, but eventually rolls over to Rey’s side, where she bundles a little tighter She knows that a droid doesn’t feel cold like a human, but she still takes one of the ragged furs and drapes it around the droid to keep it from rolling around too far. Rey tries to keep her eyes open as long as she can, listening to a story about an incredible pilot traversing the universe with the droid at its side.

_He’s coming back._

Rey falls asleep with one thought in her mind. They’re coming back.

Together, they’re going to wait.

It’ll be nice to have some company, for a while.

* * *

A new thought occurs to Rey when she’s evading her capture and finding a way off his base – maybe instead of waiting, she should have been the one to go looking. Maybe all this time, waiting around is the wrong decision. 

They’re not coming for her, maybe she’s always known that deep down, but she still has hope in her heart. When Finn and Han come to rescue her, her heart swells and she marvels at what it feels like to be _found_ , but she’d been on her way out anyhow. Even though they’d come for her, she hadn’t been waiting. 

It resolves her determination and she knows, now, what she has to do.

She’s going to go after them.

* * *

In between her visits to Finn and helping Chewbacca with the repairs to the Falcon, Rey makes sure to find time to meet Poe Dameron properly. She knocks lightly on his bunk door, somewhat charmed when he makes a big deal of tidying up as if she hasn’t seen and lived in much worse. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting company,” he admits sheepishly, running a hand through his wild hair.

“I wanted to come and say hello, properly,” she says. “You’ve got a great BB unit.”

Poe grins brightly, leaning down to pat BB-8’s upper casings. “He told me how you protected him. He told you how you even protected me.”

Rey isn’t sure what he means, the confusion showing on her face.

“You went after Finn to knock him out because BB-8 said he’d stolen my coat.”

Rey ducks her head and thinks of how very close she’d come to taking Finn’s head off, all because BB-8 had convinced her that he’d taken away his chance of seeing its master again. She’s very glad that Finn escaped her onslaught unscathed.

“BB-8 was convinced you were coming back,” Rey says quietly. “I had to get all the answers I could to help recognize you when you did.” _Because no one helped me to find answers about my lost family_ goes unsaid. _Because I need to believe that not everyone is left alone and scared and frightened and without anyone there to help_.

Poe gives her a long look, reaching out his gloved hand. “Thank you.”

“What for?”

He steps forward and claps her shoulder with a squeeze when she doesn’t shake his hand. “For keeping BB-8 safe, for helping Finn to complete the mission. Thank you.” He pauses, searching her face as if he’s trying to decide whether to say something more. “BB-8 says that you understood him.”

“I picked up binary a while ago.”

“No,” Poe replies gently. “He says that you _understood_ what he was going through. Alone, scared, waiting…”

“All this time, I thought I had to get back to Jakku,” she admits, hiding her gaze as if Poe can see her the way that Maz could. “I had to wait there because my family was coming back for me. Whatever’s happened, I know that they’re out there. I can feel it, Poe,” she says, hand over her heart and though she can’t explain why or how, she knows that she can.

“The General has feelings like that sometimes,” is what he says, and Rey could let out a relieved sob, because she can tell he believes her. “You should talk to her. I think she’d understand.”

He lets go of her shoulder, heading back inside. 

“I know you want to be here for Finn when he wakes up,” Poe says, “but Luke Skywalker is out there and he’s been doing some pretty long waiting, himself.”

“I thought you were going to go,” Rey replies, because Poe had secured the map and it had been his mission to find Luke. It only seems natural and right that he’s the one who goes after Luke, no matter how much she already knows in her heart that it should be her. Poe seems to know it, too.

“Let me stick around here and do the waiting, this time,” Poe says. “I’ll wait for Finn to wake up. You go find Luke.”

Maybe it really isn’t her turn this time. She trusts Poe to take care of Finn here on the base, just as she trusts the General and the other Resistance fighters she’s met. Somewhere in the galaxy, her family is there. She can feel herself drifting ever closer to them and she knows that lingering here on D’qar won’t bring her closer to them.

Maybe finding the galaxy’s last Jedi Master will do the trick, though.

“You’ll take good care of him?” she asks, just to make sure.

“If I don’t, BB-8 will tell.”

BB-8 whistles in agreement and Rey is startled to close her eyes to make the right decision, finding one readily waiting. Her heart’s already made this decision for her. Rey’s just catching up with it. She’s not waiting. Not this time.

_I’m going to find you_ , she thinks, stretching those new awakening feelings out into the galaxy like searching tendrils. _I’m coming home._


End file.
